Mentor Graphics Calibre Physical Verification Sales Significantly Outpace Competitors.

WILSONVILLE, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 6, 1999--Mentor Graphics Corporation (Nasdaq:MENT), the leader in deep submicron physical verification, today announced that the latest figures released from Dataquest Corporation, a San Jose-based market research firm, show that market share for Mentor Graphics' Calibre(R) physical verification tool jumped from 14.5 percent to 25.3 percent of the physical verification market in 1997, while Avant!'s market share declined nearly nine percent, from 25.7 to 16.9 percent, and Cadence's market share shrank by one percent.

The 1998 growth rate of the Calibre tool suite exceeded 200 percent while the market grew at 12 percent. This establishes Calibre as the leader in the physical verification market. Calibre products are already used at over 60 percent of the top integrated device manufacturers worldwide, and at all of the largest Japanese chip manufacturers. The Calibre tool suite is one example of several next-generation tools developed in-house by the company's advanced technology team.

"Mentor Graphics' Calibre is truly the new industry standard, both in terms of performance and capacity," said Rudi Lannoo, CAD manager for Alcatel Microelectronics. "Not only did we slash physical verification time by a factor of 10, but we also verified large, complex chips that we could never have handled with other verification tools currently on the market. The Calibre tool is now part of our ADS design flow for 0.35- and 0.25-micron technologies, and is our sign-off tool and `golden' reference for final verifications."

"The Calibre physical verification product has over a 90 percent win rate in new deep submicron projects," said Brian Derrick, director, Physical Verification Business Unit, Mentor Graphics Corporation. "The Calibre family of tools was architected not to solve the short-term problems of 10-million transistor chips, but rather the longer-term issues involved with billions of transistors. Design style independence is the Calibre tool suite's most powerful capability, achieved through proprietary techniques called Selective Promotion and Hierarchical Injection that are fundamental to the core architecture."

These algorithms provide the necessary core technology for the computationally complex issues of yield enhancement for deep submicron chips. To address this pressing need, Mentor Graphics acquired OPC Technologies, the optical process correction industry leader, and has fully integrated the technology into the Calibre architecture to extend Calibre's design-for-manufacture and yield enhancement capabilities to accommodate the most complex designs.

Mentor Graphics Corporation (Nasdaq:MENT) is a world leader in electronic hardware and software design solutions, providing products and consulting services for the world's largest electronics and semiconductor companies. Established in 1981, the company reported revenues over the last 12 months of $468 million and employs approximately 2,500 people worldwide. Company headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777. World Wide Web site: http://www.mentor.com.

Mentor Graphics and Calibre are registered trademarks of Mentor Graphics Corporation. All other company or product names are the registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.

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